Thirty Educators Selected to Participate in Inaugural Louisiana Early Leaders Academy
BATON ROUGE, La. --The Louisiana Department of Education today announced 30 early childhood educators from six pilot parishes have been selected to participate in the first cohort of the Louisiana Early Leaders Academy. The 10-month, executive-level program for directors of highly rated, publicly funded early learning centers will help expand access to quality early childhood care and education by strengthening leaders in the field.
Pilot parishes include Jefferson, Orleans, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. John the Baptist, and St. Tammany.
Each participating educator, known as a fellow and listed below, was selected through a competitive application process for directors aiming for excellence in their daily leadership of their early learning centers. They were required to lead a highly-rated early learning center, be fluent in the state's classroom observation tools, and articulate their vision for growth through the program.
"Early childhood is a critical part of a child's life, with 90 percent of brain development taking place before the age of five. Just like principals for schools, early learning directors need professional development and fellowship to best serve our kids," said State Superintendent John White. "We look forward to watching the fellows grow in their profession over the course of the next 10 months, to learning from their leadership, and to supporting them as they build a brighter future for early childhood education in Louisiana."
The Academy, which will hold its first in-person training on Sept.16 in New Orleans, will offer fellows:
- 13 days of in-person training, including exclusive opportunities to meet national and state leaders in early childhood education;
- Job-embedded coaching to support areas of need; and
- Virtual communities of practice to enhance instructional leadership and quality in early learning programs.
Over the course of the program, fellows will learn about managing systems changes, building strong teams, and improving program operations, among other content areas. At a culminating event in May 2020, fellows will present how they have used knowledge gained through the Academy to implement change.
The Academy was developed by the Department's early childhood education staff, who live-pitched the concept at the Harvard Zaentz Innovation Challenge in June 2018. The team placed in the national competition and won $10,000. The two-year pilot program is fully funded thanks to generous funding of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and a private family foundation.
Additional communities will be identified for the second year of the pilot, which will serve another 60 leaders and launch in the fall of 2020. The Academy will scale statewide in 2021.
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Fellows participating in the inaugural Louisiana Early Leaders Academy include:
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